


Feelings

by superforkingnerdy



Category: Superstore
Genre: Angst, Callback, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-04
Updated: 2021-02-04
Packaged: 2021-03-15 22:01:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29196519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/superforkingnerdy/pseuds/superforkingnerdy
Summary: Garrett had already been struggling with his feelings for Dina before their little moment in the trough- and her whole "open relationship" idea didn't help things either. Let's just say Garrett doesn't take it well.
Relationships: Dina Fox/Garrett McNeill, mcfox
Comments: 9
Kudos: 31





	Feelings

**Author's Note:**

> Hi everyone! This is my first Superstore fic. It's immediately where my head went after watching the Trough episode. It is a simple one-shot inspired by the Ground Rules promo and this iconic Video Game Release scene:
> 
> DINA: What, have you got a crush on Jonah or something?  
> AMY: Yeah, I think I do.

Garrett just wanted a break- a nice, quiet five-minute break alone, away from the mind-numbing customer service desk. The last guy he helped was returning a bottle of lube because the advertised "tingling sensation" turned out to be more of a burning sensation (and unfortunately he'd spared _none_ of the intimate details...) and the old lady before him was trying to return a toilet brush without the packaging- a _used_ toilet brush. Still damp.

He turned to go just as he saw Dina walking his way. If he'd have left a split second sooner, he would've been able to dodge her, but it was too late. She waved and flashed him an uncharacteristically big grin- the kind he could practically see through her mask as it lit up her whole face.

_Someone's in a good mood._ Then he saw who was walking beside her, just a few paces behind. Garrett groaned, dreading _whatever_ it was that was about to happen.

"Hey you," Dina called out. He gave a nod in response. "You remember my boyfriend, Brian."

"Uh, yeah, sure," he started as he reluctantly looked to Brian. "Hey man, 'sup?"

"'Sup," Brian echoed through his forest green mask that matched his forest green shirt that matched his forest green jacket... Garrett's expression stayed deadpan as he wondered what the hell Dina saw in this rejected Green Army Man.

But Dina stole his attention as she put her clipboard on the counter and leaned into it, her blouse noticeably down a few buttons. "Listen up. This is my first real relationship, as you know, and we've been going out a few months now and it's been good- I mean _really_ good, right babe?" she called over her shoulder. Then without waiting for a response, she turned back to Garrett, leaning in closer. "So I was wondering, what could make this relationship even better, you know? How could we…. spice things up?"

Garrett swallowed, working hard to keep a straight face. She had to know what she was doing here, right? The closer she got to him, the harder it was for him to look at anything else besides her cleavage- something he should _not_ be doing in front of her boyfriend. God he was confused.

Thankfully, Dina pulled away, reaching for Brian. She leaned into him, saying giddily, "you tell him, you tell him!"

Garrett sat there still confused as all hell. He's not used to this side of her- then again, there are _many_ sides to her that he didn't think he would ever understand.

Brian shrugged, clearly not as excited to share the news as she was. "Well, I told her I was relieved she mentioned it because I was getting kind of tired of our usual routine-" the way he phrased that really ground Garrett's gears, but Dina seemed unbothered as she laughed and shrugged it off like a joke. "So I said I was open to ideas and we talked about it and we decided-"

"We're gonna have an open relationship!" Dina blurted out.

Garrett's eyebrows shot up, his eyes wide, as a long "Whaaaaaat?" fell out of his mouth. He didn't know what he'd expected from this conversation but it sure as hell wasn't _this._

"Yeah, we worked it all out!" Dina jumped back in. "So I'll still be dating Brian but I can see someone else too! Anyone I want really, a friend, a coworker, an ex- doesn't matter!"

So _that's_ what this was all about. Sex. _Casual_ sex. She wanted to hook up with him without breaking up with her boyfriend. Garrett shook his head in disbelief, even though there was a part of him that wasn't surprised at all.

"And I get to see other people too," Brian piped in.

"Yeah, whatever." Dina waved a dismissive hand in his direction without taking her laser-pointed eyes off of Garrett. "So what do you think? Pretty sweet deal, right?" She nodded along as if answering her own question- like she _actually_ thought this was a good idea.

"Sure," he uttered in a tone much colder than Dina was anticipating. "Anyway, uh, I'm gonna take five."

He split so abruptly that he could hardly make out Dina's deflective sneer to Brian. "Pfft, what's his problem, am I right?"

Wanting to avoid the idiocies of breakroom chatter, Garrett ducked into the warehouse. He opened up the can of soda he'd grabbed on the way over and closed his eyes as he downed a few gulps when-

"Thought I might find you in here." Dina was suddenly towering over him, hands on her hips, one of them holding her clipboard and mask.

"So you're following me now?" Garrett moved to get out of the warehouse, but Dina was quick to cut him off.

"Hardly," she scoffed."But I needed to talk to you and I know this is where you go when you want to be alone."

"Well if you know that, why are you here?" he asked with an obvious tinge of annoyance.

"Can't seem to find you anywhere else these days."

That was fair. He'd been dodging her all week. He just didn't know what to say to her about their… moment, or whatever you'd call it. His brain couldn't make up its mind about it. One minute it was, "we got caught up in the moment, it's chill, forget about it," the next it was, "dump that jerk, we have something good here and you know it," then it was, "What's the point if she's got a boyfriend?" and it always ended with a "Dude, what are you getting so worked up about? It's just Dina." (Until he would see her and get worked up all over again, and so the cycle repeated and the avoidance continued.)

All of that could only mean one thing: he had it _bad_. "I've been around," he said, eluding eye contact. "Just- different shifts and all that…"

"This is about last week, isn't it?" Before he could even think about an answer, she went on, "Garrett, Garrett, Garrett… always getting so worked up over nothing. Come on, that was just the trough doing its thing- the mood lights, the music, the room was practically begging us to bang it out!"

"Right…" Garrett said slowly. "So you and me, that moment we had, that didn't-?"

"Nope," she stated matter-of-factly. "Didn't mean anything. It was just two old horn-dogs lifting their legs at a familiar tree."

"Mhm." Garrett bit back the first thing he wanted to say- _bull shit._ When they'd locked eyes in the trough, he _felt_ that. There was no way this thing was one-sided. He would've gotten it if she'd just owned up to her feelings while still choosing Brian over him, but he didn't think living in denial was her style. "Well, thanks for clearing that up."

A few aisles over, a forklift started backing up, its warning beeps blaring throughout the warehouse. "So what do you think?" Dina yelled over the sound.

"Of the, uh-"

"Open relationship!" The forklift had gone quiet just as she yelled that. She lowered her voice, trying to entice him, "It'll be like the good old days. You, me, unlimited trips to pound town," she said, thrusting her hips while making squeaky-bed noises.

"Ugh." Garrett rubbed his forehead wondering where he went wrong in life to lead him to this moment. "Gotta be honest, Dina, I'm not feeling it."

"Not _here_ obviously." The forklift went off again and she gestured to it with her thumb over her shoulder. "Even I can't work like this. And the no-sex-in-the-store rule still applies."

Garrett waited impatiently for the beeping to end before saying, "Nah, it's not that."

"Oh, I get it," Dina sympathized as she looked him up and down. "Look, I know it smells like dead rats in here, but once we sneak outside it won't take much for us to get going. Brian's van has tinted windows in the back and one of those air freshers that smells like vanilla cream- and I just so happen to have the keys. I think you'll find the setting a little more... _exciting._ "

"What? No," Garrett responded, horrified and a little emasculated. "What I _meant_ was... I'm out."

"Wait are you-" Dina looked at him like he'd suddenly grown a second head. "You're turning down sex?"

"Yup."

"With me?"

"...Well- yeah." He'd seen her make that confounded expression a few times before, but it was usually after he referenced an app or something millennial. He was going to have to break it all down for her. "Did you ever stop to think about how any of this would work?" he asked, moving closer to her. "We can't have sex at the store because of your newfound moral code-"

Dina faltered at the unexpected line of questioning. "I'm a manager, it's different now, I-"

"And I can't go to your place because he'll be there, probably making you dinner or whatever."

"Actually I usually just go to his place after work and cook for him." Garrett had a hard time picturing that. "He works later shifts than me, oh and sometimes we-"

"So you come over to my place, have a quickie, and dip?"

"I'm sure we could fit in more than that, we were always pretty efficient."

Exasperated, Garrett shook his head at her. "Did you make _any_ sort of ground rules?"

Dina drew back, still not sure where this is coming from. "No," she admitted.

"And things are different now. Like, I actually give a crap about you now, and you can deflect all you want, but I know you care about me too."

"Listen, buddy, as far as _friends_ go, you're pretty low on my list," she bluffed, forcing a laugh. "Not even in the top ten."

"And what if I'd said yes?" he pushed. "If we started sleeping together again, you really think we could keep on doing it without any sort of feelings coming up?"

This whole interrogation caught Dina off-guard. She felt stuck. If she were to say he was even _close_ to having a point, her relationship with Brian would be over. And things were really going great with Brian! Really! She tried to remind herself of all the things she liked about him- but other than being a vegan vet with a nice ass, she was drawing a blank… but what would it mean if she left him for _Garrett?_ Who leaves a solid relationship for a fuck-buddy?

"Feelings? God no," she dismissed insistently. "No, no, we've been through all this. We have the sex, no strings attached, and we go back to our lives. Just two primates rolling around in the sack, giving each other mutual world-rocking orgasms. It's meaningless, that's the beauty of it!"

This whole charade was getting under his skin. "C'mon, that's crap and you know it."

"What are you talking about?"

Garrett couldn't tell if she was playing dumb to get out of admitting her feelings or if she were really that oblivious to the way he felt about her. "You're telling me you've _never_ thought about it?" he urged. "About us?"

"Oh I think about our intercourse _often_ ," she assured him. "Sometimes, I think about you when I'm-"

"No- God- _not that."_ Garrett let out a loud, agitated sigh as he rubbed his eyes, like he was trying to wipe away the visual of what she was just about to say. "Forget it."

The sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach told Dina she was wrong for treating him like this… or was that the leftover pinto bean chili putting up a fight? No… nope, definitely the first thing.

_Of course she thought about him_. As much as she tried to push him out of her system, she just couldn't get rid of him. And she realized at that moment that she didn't want to. All at once, her walls came crumbling down. Her posture fell, her arms left their post on her hips and fell to her side, and she took a hesitant step forward. "Garrett..."

But he couldn't bring himself to look at her anymore. His head hung low as he backed away from her and turned to leave.

This time, she didn't stand in his way.

\--------

Dina wasn't thinking straight when she went back into the store. There was so much stirring around in her head that she wasn't paying attention to where she was going, and between the harsh lights and the bustling customers, she nearly crashed right into Brian. He gave her a kiss on the cheek and was asking where she ran off to, but she was too distracted to pay him any mind.

He took her hand and was leading her to the parking lot- she still had a shift to work, but it was time for him to head out. Dina nodded along while subtly scanning the floor for Garrett, saying her "uh huhs" and "reallys" as he droned on and on about the bowel movements of a client's 16-year-old cat.

She finally spotted him helping a customer find something to exchange over in the kitchen department. Garrett looked up just then but carried on with the customer and turned his back to her. _That's fine, probably didn't see me,_ she told herself. She'd just… catch up with him later.

She gave Brian his keys and once he was gone, Dina faced the store looking for a distraction. She immediately noticed countless things out of place. Instead of targeting each little one, she went straight to the source: floor manager.

She found Cheyenne hovering around the makeup counter. Dina approached her from behind, watching as she meticulously put the foundations in order. "What's going on?"

Cheyenne jumped and whirled around in one sharp jolt. "Huh? What? I'm not stealing anything-"

Dina had to laugh, "Yeah, like you'd commit a crime on employee time. Even you're not dumb enough for that!"

Cheyenne's eyes bulged as she laughed along, "Totally..." Her eyes darted to the half-empty bottle of foundation that she'd hidden among the full ones, then back at Dina, who remained oblivious.

"So, _floor manager,_ any reason you're back at the makeup counter instead of, oh I don't know, managing the floor?"

"Oh, it's a habit, I must've forgot," she shrugged. "Maybe it's because I still haven't gotten that pay raise..."

"God! Cheyenne! You have _got_ to stop with the greediness. You'll get paid when you get paid," Dina groaned. "You need to get out there, I mean, look at this mess!" Dina waved her arms, gesturing to the flaws that were just so _obviously_ clear to her. In doing so, she saw Garrett back at the customer service desk. His customer had checked out and he was sitting there talking to Jonah- whatever they were going on about had him pretty worked up. And there was that stomach-drop feeling again…

Meanwhile, Cheyenne tried to figure out what Dina was gesturing to, but didn't see the big deal- looked like a basic day at Cloud 9 to her. But she nodded in agreement anyway, saying, "Right, yeah, I'll get right on that. But like, it kinda sucks doing a job you're not really getting paid to do you know? And it's like-"

Her voice trailed off as she continued to ramble about corporate and money and who cares what else. Jonah got Garrett to laugh. It was a half-hearted kind of laugh- knowing Jonah's lack of humor, it was probably out of pity.

As she watched, her conversation with Garrett replayed in her head. She thought further back- before the trough- to all their hookups and breakups, their feud over sneakers and birds, their survival of the tornado, the super hot office sex, their first kiss…

"Are you even listening to me?" Cheyenne butted in, waving a hand in front of her face to get her attention.

"Um, yeah. Sorry." But Dina couldn't take her eyes off of Garrett, who was busy with other customers now- a mother and son of 10 years old. He'd been showing off all the different gaming systems to them, and just started playing a demo with the kid. It looked like Garrett was letting him win.

Nosily following her gaze, Cheyenne spun around to find Garrett getting out a boxed up Sony PS5, then turned back to a spellbound Dina.

"What, do you have a crush on Garrett or something?

"Yeah," Dina finally admitted. "I think I do."

**Author's Note:**

> THANK YOU! If anyone actually reads this, I'll be so pleasantly surprised!! I truly don't know if there's a big market for Superstore on here or not(?) 
> 
> Anyway, I struggled a lot while writing this, not so much because of the plot, but because of their voices. I realized I had no idea how to write Garret or Dina's perspectives- definitely out of my element! I still had fun with it though and I hope you all enjoy it :) 
> 
> Comments, feedback, and kudos are always appreciated!


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